thing to the prejudice of Henry's lawful marriage with queen Anne, and also for refusing to admit the king's ecclesiastical supremacy; and although the evidence against him completely failed, he was found guilty and condemned to death. He was beheaded July 0, 1535, and met his fate with intrepidity and even clieerfidness. In the words of Addison : '• The innocent mirth which had been so conspicuous in his life did not forsake him to the last. When he laid his head on the block, he desired the executioner to wait until he had removed his beard, 'for that had never offended his highness.' He did not look upon the severing of his head from his body as a circumstance which ought to produce any change in the disposition of his mind; and as he died in a fixed and settled hope of immortality, he thought any unusual degree of sorrow and concern improper" {^"ipectutor, No. 349). His body was first interred in the Tower, but was afterwards begged and obtained by his daughter, Margaret Roper, and deposited in the chancel of the church at Chelsea, where a monument, with an inscription written by himself, had been some time be- fore erected, and is still to be seen. His head was placed on London Bridge, but was taken down and preserved also by his daughter in a vault belonging to the lioper family, under a chapel adjoining St. Uunstan's church in Canterbury. The story of JIargarct's tenderness and devotion to her father should live as long as the English language endures.
Jlore was the author of many and various works, which were mostly in defence of Komanism, and direct- ed against the revolutionary tendencies of the Church of his day. They have no value now as literary pro- ductions. There is, however, one work of his which deserves special notice. It is entitled Be opiimo rei- piiblicce statu deque nova insula Utopia (Lovanni, 1566, 4to), the first communistic writing by an English au- thor. It criticises the English government and luiro- pean politics, and is an account of an imaginarj- com- monwealth on the island of Utopia, feigned to have been discovered by a companion of Amerigo Vespucci, and from whom More leanis the tale. Society is rep- resented there as an ideal system, in which opinions are expressed with great boldness and originality, and espe- cially favorable to freedom of inquiry even in religion. In it all its members would labor for the public good, all being.ciiually obliged to contribute, and the only dif- ference being in the nature of the labor; all its members would thus be on a footing of absolute ecjuality, all prop- erty be in common, all forms of religion perfectly free, etc. " Many questions of the highest importance to the citizen," says Lieber, "are discussed in a spirit far in advance of his time. He recommended perfect freedom of conscience, which was a thing absolutely unknown then, and for centuries afterwards" (Political Kthics, pt. i, p. 332). Of the work as a whole, lord Campbell says that " since the time of I'lato there had been no comi)osition given to the world which, for imagination, for philosophical discrimination of men and manners, and for felicity of expression, could be compared to the Utopia" (I.ivcs of the Lord Chancellors; Life of &ir Thomas Afore). Hallam jironounces it "the only work of genius that England can boast in this age" (Lit. Hist, of Europe [4th ed. 1854], p. 276). Yet, though Sir Thomas advocated such lofty principles in his Utopia, it must be admitted that he was not himself altogether free from tlic religious bias of the times, being not only a most strenuous advocate of the power of the pope, but also a vehement opponent and persecutor of heretics. It is true Erasmus cites as proof of iMore's clemency " that while he was chancellor no man was put to death for these jiestilent dogmas;" but Fronde contradicts this statement, and implicates Sir Thomas in the persecu- tious for conscience' sake. There is, however, a solemn declaraliou by the chancellor himsilf in liis Apolocy (published in 1533), in which be expressly denies that he was guilty of any cruel treatment of the heretics. It was never contradicted in his own time, and there-
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fore should be well considered before Froude's state- ment is accepted.
If now, from his works, we turn to the personal char- acter of Sir Thomas More, we find that he is generally acknowledged to have been, "for justice, contempt of money, humility, and a true generosity of mind, an ex- ample to the age in which he lived." His Christian temper, too, we may add, was such as made him an honor to tlie Christian cause in general. It is true he declared upon the scaffold that he died in and for the faith of the Church of Rome, but any Church might have wished him theirs ; and therefore that Church has placed him, not without reason, among the brightest of her martyrs. "More," says bishop Kurnet, '-was the glory of his age ; and his advancement was the king's honor more than his own, who was a true Christian philosopher. He thought the cause of the king's di- vorce was just, and as long as it was prosecuted at the court of Rome, so long he favored it ; but when he saw that a breach with that court was likely to follow, he left the post he was in with a superior greatness of mind. It was a fall great enough to retire from that into a pri- vate state of life, but the carrying matters so far against him as the king did was one of the justest reproaches of that reign. More's superstition seems indeed con- temptible, but the constancy of his mind was truly won- derful" {Hist. Reformation, iii, 100). A British writer of considerable note thus summarizes upon More : " The terseness and liveliness of his sayings, his sweet temper and affectionate disposition, his blameless life, his learn- ing and probit}', combine to make a union of perfect simplicity with moral and intellectual greatness which will forever endear his memory to his countr3-men of every sect and party." The English works of Sir Thomas More were collected and published at London in 1557, and his Latin works at Louvain in 15oG. His letters to Erasmus are printed in the collection of Eras- mus's letters published at London in 1G42. His Utopia, which has been translated into many European lan- guages, and has had a world-wide circulation, was given an English dress by Robynson (Lond. 1551), by bishop Burnet, and more recently by Arthur Cayley (Lond. 1808). The Life of Sir Thomas. More has been written by his son-in-law. Roper, who married his favorite daughter Margaret (Lond. 1626) ; by his great-grand- son, T. More (1626); by Hoddesden (Lond. 1652); bv Cayley (1808) ; by Walter [R. C] (Lond. 1840) ; and by Sir James Mackintosh, in Lives of Eminent British Statesmen, published in Dr. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclop., and in Miscell. Works (Lond. 1854, 18mo), i, 393 sq. See also lord Campbell, Lices of the Lord Chancellors ; Froude, Hist, of Enyl. vol. ii, ch. ix, reviewed in North Brit. Re>\ 1851) ; Burnet, Oion Times, i, 155 sq. ; Words- worth, Eccles. Bioff. ii, 49 sq. ; Soames, Reformed Ch. of Encj. vol. i and ii ; Macaulay, Crit. and Hist. Es- says, ii, 543; Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers o/" 1498 (Lond. 1869) ; Edinburgh Rev. xiv, 360 ; Westminster Rev. xi, 193 ; Foreign Rev. v, 391 ; Retrospective Rev. (1822), V, 249; North American Rev. viii, 181; Ixvi, 272 ; National Qu. Rev. June, 1863, art. iii.